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Free Ipad Mini from Wellesley – Honest!

Regular users of the internet are aware by now that there is no such thing as a free Ipad.

However all that changed for me yesterday.

I’d long been deeply unsatisfied with the rate of interest that I was receiving on my Cash Isa and had been considering moving my money (or some of it) regardless of the consequence of losing the allowance. Unfortunately getting a decent rate meant tying up my funds for years – something I wasn’t keen to do, as in the medium term it’s for a house deposit.

Out of the blue an email from Moneysupermarket.com arrived, trumpeting:

I had already heard of Wellesley, having been an “early adopter” of P2P (Peer To Peer” lending via ZOPA. Plus the service had been recommended by a friend. However financial inertia had meant that I failed to follow it up.

The incentive of a shiny thing that I coveted was enough to make me spring into action! Plus I quickly did the numbers and found that the £3000 in my ISA would earn me only £22.58, versus a projected return with Wellesley of £184! They have a handy calculator on the site to quickly show what you might receive in interest from your investment.

How does Wellesley work? That’s probably a subject for another article, another day. You can use Google to find out about people’s experiences with the service – and they seem to be generally positive. However there is a point to remember. Although Wellesley & Co Limited is Authorised and Regulated by the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA), it is NOT covered by the Financial Services Compensation Scheme. That means that your money is not protected in the same way as it would be in a traditional bank account. HOWEVER, you might take comfort from the fact that as an extremely cautious investor myself, if I choose to put my own funds in then I feel it’s pretty damn safe!

Because your funds are not just given to one person – the money you put in is lent out in small chunks to a number of people – the risk of individual default is negated. Also a major difference with Wellesley is that the loans are not unsecured – they only lend money to those with an asset of tangible value which could be sold with relative ease.

Even if all else fails, Wellesley keeps a “Provision Fund” which lenders can apply to in the fairly rare event that a borrower defaults, and the asset that underwrites the debt cannot be easily liquidated.

But HURRY if you want to take advantage of this rather generous offer – it only runs until the 7th of August!

UPDATE: It’s here!

Following minor courier-related shenanigans, it arrived very promptly on Monday – not even seven days after they emailed to tell me it was on the way. And it’s lovely – so much nicer than my old Nexus 7 tablet, which I tried hard to like but never succeeded…

Photos to follow. Don’t delay, apply for yours today – the offer is only open until early August – and don’t forget that Terms and Conditions will apply.